Germany's hard coal mining output fell in 2018 - GVSt

Coal News - Published on Fri, 14 Dec 2018

Reuters reported that hard coal production from Germany’s two remaining mines will amount to 2.6 million tonnes this year, down from 3.7 million in 2017, Sales of all domestically mined coal totalled around four million tonnes in 2018, compared with 4.5 million tonnes last year, mining association GVSt estimated.

This is in line with a national schedule to stop domestic mining completely by Dec. 31, 2018, in favour of cheaper imports.

By setting the 2018 deadline, marking the end of 200 years of coal mining in the Ruhr valley, Germany won a battle with the European Commission over subsidies after the Commission had demanded a complete withdrawal by 2014.